NAB Show Perspectives: The role of strategic partnerships and system integration in broadcast operations

The media and entertainment industry is built on connections between content, technology, and the people who bring stories to life. Those connections don’t happen by accident. They are founded on thoughtful partnerships and smart systems integration that turn individual tools into powerful workflows.

Because no single vendor can provide everything a media organization needs, integration of best-of-breed applications underpinned by strong partnerships is essential.

Connection at the system and organizational level makes it possible to create a network of solutions that work together to drive innovation, enable greater efficiencies, and facilitate future growth.

The power of partnership

No media organization operates in isolation, especially with technology evolving rapidly and operational needs continuously shifting. Modern media supply chains depend on a diverse ecosystem of solutions, and true value emerges when these solutions work together in harmony. Deep partnerships among technology providers help to ensure that the media supply chain management can draw on a wide array of integrated tools, whether for transcoding, QC, AI/ML processing, storage, or any other critical workflow component. When vendors collaborate to bring shared customers more powerful and efficient solutions, they can streamline deployment, reduce complexity, and reduce the burden of managing technical infrastructure.

In addition to removing friction from technology integrations, thoughtful partnerships foster collaboration in delivering solutions optimized for real-world industry challenges. Through strategic alliances, partners can be more effective in working together to solve their customers’ challenges. They can help customers to stay ahead of the curve, adapting readily as new formats, distribution channels, and business models emerge.

Smart system integration

Media organizations work with complex data and intricate workflows. The best-run facilities integrate their key systems with media supply chain management so that data from rights, scheduling, playout, and other systems can help to drive supply chain processes. And a critical element of smart system integration is ensuring that the right data can flow smoothly between systems.

As good as they may be on their own, best-of-breed applications, or tools, are most useful if they interoperate faultlessly with other such applications. When system integration is a priority, every component in a media supply chain functions as part of a unified workflow. Integration incorporates these individual tools into a cohesive, intelligent system that operates more efficiently.

When media organizations move away from siloed operations or disparate islands of functionality, they can largely leave behind custom engineering or one-off integrations.

Advertisement

With the right media supply chain management platform, they can apply dynamic resource management to configure and optimize their supply chains without extensive development effort. They can connect applications and automate processes to reduce operational overhead, accelerate content preparation, and improve overall agility. Smart integration not only simplifies supply chain management but also opens the door to new capabilities.

Why connection matters so much now

In an industry that never stands still, the ability to connect technologies, teams, and processes — whether internally or across industry partners — is a competitive advantage. While the right partnerships ensure access to best-in-class solutions, intelligent integration transforms those solutions into a well-orchestrated system.

Bridges between applications, between companies, and between people make it easier for media organizations to focus on what they do best. With strong connections across operations and organizations, they can unlock greater value from the media supply chain and raise the bar for delivering outstanding content experiences.

Geoff Stedman, SDVIGeoff Stedman is the chief marketing officer for SDVI, where he leads all aspects of marketing and helps drive the company’s go-to-market strategies. Stedman has a diverse technology marketing background, both with enterprise technology and in the media & entertainment market, and he has spent most of the past 20 years promoting advanced technologies that help transform media workflows. An aspiring woodworker and cook, Stedman will often be found in his workshop or the kitchen when not at his work desk. Stedman holds a M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.